We recently stumbled upon the work of final year photography student Adriaan Hauwaert and instantly fell for his .be series, which somehow reminded us of the red brick houses feature we had run in our red album. Impeccably framed and with a consistency that’d have Ed Ruscha running for the exit, Adriaan’s series is part ‘documentary’ (the houses he photographs are within a 20km radius of where he lives), part ‘fiction’ (the photographs often have a surreal element to them, a Hansel and Gretel sugar-coated superficiality if you will). What’s more, it manages to capture a very Belgian style of architecture that, in our eyes, will never go out of fashion. We caught up with the soon-to-graduate up-and-coming talent to find out what his next move is.

How old are you?

What are you up to nowadays?

I’m in my final year photography at Narafi in Brussels. So i’m working on some school assignments and my end of college project.

Tell us a little about your .be series? What’s the inspiration behind it? Where are most of the houses you shoot located? Do you know about the people that live inside those houses?

In this country there are a lot of different architectural styles. Sometimes the houses look a little bit strange and the houses don’t fit into the street. This is what I wanted to capture in my photographs in a graphical and formal way. All these houses are located within 20 km of where I live. I don’t really know the people who live there.

Is it an on-going series?

I’m still working on it and there are still a lot of houses I want to photograph. But I have a lot of other projects that I’m working on.

What does grey say to you? Why is it a colour that speaks to you?

Grey is always there but it never interrupts.

Would you say coming from Mechelen influences your eye, and photographic work?

Not really, I don’t feel connected with that city. I live 10 km away from Mechelen.

What are you working on at the moment? What’s your end of college project?

At the moment I don’t have time for my own projects because I have a lot of school assignments. I have a few ideas but I haven’t decided yet which project I want to use for my end of college project.

What more do you have in-store for the grey series?

You’ll see it on my site… I can’t predict what the street will bring. I’m looking for certain things that contrast against the color of grey. I want to bring it in way that is a little bit minimalistic and graphical.

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